Description: The screw pine is a strange plant on stilts,
or prop roots, that support the plant above-ground so that it appears more or less
suspended in midair. These plants are either shrubby or treelike, 3 to 9 meters tall,
with stiff leaves having saw like edges. The fruits are large, roughened balls
resembling pineapples, but without the tuft of leaves at the end.

Habitat and Distribution: The screw pine is a tropical
plant that grows in rain forests and semi-evergreen seasonal forests. It is found
mainly along seashores, although certain kinds occur inland for some distance, from
Madagascar to southern Asia and the islands of the southwestern Pacific. There
are about 180 types.

Edible Parts: Knock the ripe fruit to the ground to
separate the fruit segments from the hard outer covering. Chew the inner fleshy
part. Cook fruit that is not fully ripe in an earth oven. Before cooking, wrap the
whole fruit in banana leaves, breadfruit leaves, or any other suitable thick, leathery
leaves. After cooking for about 2 hours, you can chew fruit segments like ripe fruit.
Green fruit is inedible.

Sea orachAtriplex halimus

Description: The sea orach is a sparingly branched
herbaceous plant with small, gray-colored leaves up to 2.5 centimeters long. Sea
orach resembles Iamb's quarter, a common weed in most gardens in the United States.
It produces its flowers in narrow, densely compacted spikes at the tips of its branches.

Habitat and Distribution: The sea orach is found in highly
alkaline and salty areas along seashores from the Mediterranean countries to inland areas
in North Africa and eastward to Turkey and central Siberia. Generally, it can be found in tropical
scrub and thorn forests, steppes in temperate regions, and most desert scrub and waste areas.

Edible Parts: Its leaves are edible. In the areas where it grows, it
has the healthy reputation of being one of the few native plants that can sustain man in times
of want.